Author
Topic: additional armour types (Read 13694 times)

At first glance, I always assumed that the soldiers in xcom used the best available armour, but it simply was grossly ineffective against the alien's weapons. but then, the sprites wear simple coveralls, and you can kill an xcom soldier with a few pistol shots. so I guess they really don't wear armour in the beginning. which is kind of weird. supposedly, they are a multi-national elite organisation, so they should have at least some armour available.

from the way the xcom soldier sprites are subdivided, it would be quite easy to add something like flak vests (arms require additional modding of a lot of sprites), so I'll try to make something like that as soon as I find the time.

Is there something else you would like to see? again, keep in mind that while it is quite easy to make torso modifications (13 sprites in total for a new armor type that is based on an unarmoured soldier - 8 torso sprites plus 3 for the death animation, 1 for the dead soldier battlescape floor object and 1 for the dead soldier inventory item), arms are a completely different matter, and don't get me started on the legs with their walking animations...

perhaps some combination is possible: a new torso, perhaps a helmet, and a palette shift for the arms and legs?

I think that the game truly lacks some kind of armor that doesn't have to be researched first. Even when you are in the phase where you can manufacture the personal armor it's better to wait for at least power suits. It would be really nice if there were some "improved bulletproof vests" that would be required to manufacture, but they would be cheap and they'd provide additional armor on the front and back sides of a soldier.

If there was a TU/energy penalty for wearing an armor, it would make sense to make another armor class - some kind of very light shielding device that could have its armor stats even a bit lower than the other armors. Maybe it wouldn't have a flying variation. Then there would be a dilema - have all units in flying suits, or some with a bit lower shielding but without the limitation of moving? It would add a nice variety in the game.

I'm just afraid that adding this penalty would cause major balance changes, so that it would be necessary to rebalance TU/energy amounts on soldiers.

I would also like to see different "pocket layouts" depending on the armour type. what I mean is that for example the flying suit has these big thruster-thingys on the back (although I assume it's really some kind of anti-grav-unit), so where exactly would you have a backpack?

I think the heavier armor types could be balanced by taking away some equipment space.

the xcom soldiers can pack too much stuff anyway. bringing 7 plasma rifles, two plasma pistols and still having enough space for five large explosive packages? come on. the only weapon that actually requires you to use the backpack is the rocket launcher... and that's not powerful enough to make me bring it instead of an auto cannon with lots of HE ammo. Maybe if the rockets where only 1x2 spaces big, I would reconsider. then I could bring 5 rockets (plus one in the launcher).

the xcom soldiers can pack too much stuff anyway. bringing 7 plasma rifles, two plasma pistols and still having enough space for five large explosive packages? come on. the only weapon that actually requires you to use the backpack is the rocket launcher... and that's not powerful enough to make me bring it instead of an auto cannon with lots of HE ammo. Maybe if the rockets where only 1x2 spaces big, I would reconsider. then I could bring 5 rockets (plus one in the launcher).

Well every soldier's suite just has tons of pockets. But if you take too much, your energy will go down very fast. And that's not worth it.

Only the beefier soldiers can use the heaviest one effectively, to prevent just throwing on "the best" option right from the get-go. Yeah, they'll probably not save anyone from anything heavier than a plasma pistol and friendly fire but at least you got some options.

Next up is the personal armor.I decided to split up the one armor into several, but I haven't decided upon if splitting the research should also be a requirement, possibly for the heaviest variant.

Note the reduced weight despite higher armor values due to the use of Alien Alloys (and also the cost of constructing the suits being balanced by Alloy requirements):

Finally the powered suits. these I thought could use a little rebalancing to make it less of a clear choice of which to pick. The Allow cost is also cranked up to keep the Personal armor variants competitive for your less elite troops.

I was also thinking that maybe the "Power" Armor could actually grant the wearer some added strength, allowing them to run around with more gear and maybe make some "really big" weapons that only power armor wearing people can use effectively (allowing them to wield HWP-type guns or something).

As for sprite work, The heaviest ballistic vest could have some Russian style torso armor / Bombsuit + helmet and maybe a palette swap for the legs and arms.The Light Personal Armor could use the torso and head section only of the personal armor sprites and combine it with the jumpsuit legs and arms.The Heavy variant could get a proper helmet and maybe slightly thicker torso protection.

The main difference in modern ballistic vests lies mostly with the plating (or lack of, but kevlar alone aint gonna do much against rifle bullets!), those plates are usually inserted (in the Russian case) into pockets "inside" the kevlar vest. I believe western designs may come with the plates "included" from production but there are modular constructions too.Then there's stuff like optional/removable groin protection and throat guards.In short, changing up the legs and arms isn't all that necessary because nobody bothers to armor those parts due to mobility and weight issues (although the options exist).

In summary:Something like a Type II (or Type I) may stop pistol rounds and is what cops usually wear and is more comfortable than vests with stiff ballistic plating.Type III is rated for rifle rounds.Type IV is rated for Armor Piercing Rifles.

And with "rated" it means they can take at least 1 shot, at certain velocities, bullet mass and distance.

As for the sprites in specific, with X-Com being its own thing there's really no reason why they can't get their stuff in whatever color they might want. With there being relatively little visual difference between the different Ballistics Vests (At least Sprite Sized) there might not be all that much work involved.

Merge the Light/Medium Armor types into a generic "Standard Armor"; because with the way the game engine is currently set up, there's really no quantifiable difference between them; people will always pick medium armor, because there isn't code in the game engine to reward them for picking the light armor currently.

Plus, it also complicates the armor list. You want to give the player choices, but not TOO many choices -- it then becomes pointless, look at the billion and one guns of Jagged Alliance 2 1.13; all with near identical stats, and everyone just goes straight to SCAR :-P

Beef up the Assault Armor a bit more to make it worthwhile assigning it to the first man out of the Skyranger, and the first guy into that UFO; because being able to survive an alien shooting at you outweighs the fact that you move slow....and you'd be able to implement the armor differences in a tactically useful way.

Yeah, the light armor is probably rather pointless regardless of that but it would feel a little better than sending in guys without any armor - perhaps simply change the basic jumpsuit sprite to include some sort of "basic vest" which would explain the tiny armor that the basic soldier get. When I first designed them I also had in mind adding some weapons, along the lines of aliens getting some sort of laser / pulse laser weapon for early encounters. Still strong guns, but the ballistic armor would have a point then (until the aliens upgraded weapons).

Another idea in that vein is to play around with armor vurnabilities / strengths (I think UFO: Aftermath did this a little). Not much point as long as the aliens are only packing plasma (and explosives), but with more weapon and damage type we could have armor that is engineered towards giving high protection against a specific damage type, versus an armor "line" that gives decent protection against most weapon types.

If you don't know what you're up against you pick the decent one, but if you know what you'll be facing (if it would be possible to have various aliens favour different weapons) you could equip the niché stuff.

Granted, that could be needless complexity - but it could probably be fun the other way around. Picking the right gun for the job and not merely make it a "Heavy Plasma for everyone" kinda deal. That's not this thread though

This way the Heavy Ballistic Vest is *mostly* inferior to the Standard Personal Armour (short of the front armor), yet you might still want to pack it for a few "door busters" (and of course, it would be a lot cheaper) until the Heavy Personal Armour becomes available.

The Light Personal Armour is ideal for the riff-raff, as it is better than the Type III ballistic vest yet a lot lighter than the Heavy Ballistic vest.

I think for the weight you should just copy how Apocalypse works, they already "improved" the weight system in that game: basically every assigned item reduces a soldier Time Units by a certain amount relative the total weight carried by the unit (so a heavy armor sensibly reduces them, because it increases a lot the total weight). Strength still have a role of course*

Simple, intuitive, and makes a lot of sense (gameplay-wise, because every item you want to take with you reduces the ever-precious TUs, so lots of interesting decisions when you equip a soldier); pretty much perfect.

* (from gamefaq):

Quote

12.4.5 EncumbranceIt's possible for a unit to carry weight up to four times its strength. However, as a unit becomes more encumbered, it will lose time units and speed at an ever-increasing rate.

I think the main problem with armor adding weight is that you cannot strip the armor off while in battle.

in apocalypse, you could easily change armor in battle, it worked just like any other item, only with special slots.

imagine putting heavy armor on your soldiers only to realise that the front row guys in the skyranger cannot move anymore, so your troops are trapped inside the skyranger.

or somebody receives damage and strength is decreased (I'm not sure if that's the case, but I can think of situations where such a mechanic would make sense, so it might happen in a mod...), and suddenly the soldier is unable to move because of his armor.

you need something to prevent these situations, to avoid frustration.

maybe we should actually make armor an item... taking it off or putting it on would simply take 100% TU, to have some semblance of realism, but at least you can do it.

I think the main problem with armor adding weight is that you cannot strip the armor off while in battle.

in apocalypse, you could easily change armor in battle, it worked just like any other item, only with special slots.

imagine putting heavy armor on your soldiers only to realise that the front row guys in the skyranger cannot move anymore, so your troops are trapped inside the skyranger.

or somebody receives damage and strength is decreased (I'm not sure if that's the case, but I can think of situations where such a mechanic would make sense, so it might happen in a mod...), and suddenly the soldier is unable to move because of his armor.

you need something to prevent these situations, to avoid frustration.

maybe we should actually make armor an item... taking it off or putting it on would simply take 100% TU, to have some semblance of realism, but at least you can do it.

Well if you over-weight the soldier so much to the point of immobilization, you should get a message in the equipment screen; armor alone can't immobilize even the weakest soldier (unless you set the armor weight 5 times heavier than the actual Apocalypse heaviest armor).Also a soldier get strength damaged by an attack (no attack in any X-Com influence strength as far as I know) and thus immobilized by the weight because he was heavily equipped, I just find it a natural consequence you have to deal with, just like a soldier zombified by a chryssalid/brainsucked by a branisucker. A modded strength attack must be balanced, making it non-cumulative, so even a damaged a soldier can drop everything but the armor to be able to move again).

Those are extremely borderline (and avoidable) issues that shouldn't rule out this good weight system. This is my opinion obviously.